“What is the
intention or aim in your philosophy? – To show the fly the way out of the
fly-bottle.”
To put you into
Context:
Ancient Western Philosophers were so conceptual and metaphysical that they
concentrated on the primordial matter and substantial form. Thus they insisted
only on conceptual knowledge, and failed to clarify the problems of daily life.
They had different theories on language with regard to words, sentences and
reality. Contrastingly, Wittgenstein initiated the notion of language games that endowed with rules,
norms and principles for the better use of language as a tool in meaningful
communication. The aim of his philosophy is to find linguistic expression
meaningfully.
Incarnation: Ludwig Josef
Johann Wittgenstein was born Vienna,
Austria on 26th April, 1889 in a well to do family as the youngest
of five brothers and three sisters; parents were Karl Wittgenstein a Jewish
industrialist and mother Leopoldine Kalmus, a Catholic woman. As a boy he was
passionate about engineering and aeronautics which in fact had a great
influence in his thinking and philosophy. In the contemporary period his
contribution to linguistic analysis was outstanding with his concepts of private language, picture theory and language
games. His philosophy is so unique that he connects language and its
grammar to the life and its norms.
The Advent of a
Linguistic Legend: It
was the threshold of the 18th century where the invention and
advancement of science and culture was rampant. It was the time of Renaissance
of culture and a time of scientific revolution; where Wittgenstein was the one who
initiated a trend of philosophy making Language as the object of his
philosophical investigation and enquiry. He completely drowned the presumptions
and presuppositions of the ancient and medieval philosophical jargon and
conceptual dilemmas. Thus he set a trend where the traditional philosophy needs
a therapy to heal from the metaphysical and conceptual jargons which in fact
added more confusion instead of solving the problems. Therefore, his philosophy
was also called as a therapeutic philosophy.
Wittgenstein out of his quest for philosophical
knowledge and learning read the philosophies of Aristotle, Plato and Spinoza
and discovered that their language was imperfect with some defects and
ambiguities. Therefore, for him, the function of philosophy should be
clarifying the confusion created rather than adding more confusion. He
introduced a new method to solve the problem by analysing sentences, and the
use of words. This he called as a therapeutic method which aims to solve philosophical problems, puzzles and ambiguities. He considered philosophical
problems as a mental cramp to be relieved or a knot in our thinking to be
united. He argued that such problems arise due to the misinterpretation of the
forms of language.
The Works to His
Credit:
Wittgenstein is popular for his enormous writings and philosophical works. To
his credit there are two major works which influenced the entire linguistic
philosophy. His early work is known as the Tractatus
Logico-Philosophicus (1921) and the later part of his work is known as Philosophical Investigations (1949). And
all the important works published after his posthumous books are Philosophical Grammar, Blue and Brown Books, Writings on Philosophy of Psychology and
On Certainty. Interestingly when he
was asked to publish his works he was rather unwilling. Because he thought,
despite his intellectual calibre, he feared that he would be misunderstood. This was one of the reasons why he was unwilling to publish his works. Once,
just a day before his death he told his Friend Mr Bevan, that he had wonderful
life and wished to communicate the same to all his friends. Finally this great
philosopher breathed his last on 29th April, 1951 at Cambridge,
England.
His
Contribution: In
the linguistic analysis it is Wittgenstein who contributed the most through his
philosophical and significant works. If critically analyse his philosophical
journey, we see him first stepping into very negative philosophical wing while
initiating a Private Language concept
which itself is a wrong premise. Thus he gradually makes a path for Positivism and Analytical Philosophy while associating with some of the renowned
philosophers of the 18th Century like Schopenhauer, Russell and
Moore.
Significance: The early Wittgenstein made language as
a personal object through his concept of Private
Language and Picture Theory. The
emphasis of Private Language is that there cannot be anything in common but
subjective. Thus he made a mistake by establishing language and feelings as
subjective products of experience and knowing. Contrasting to his early premise,
later Wittgenstein introduced a new way of investigating language with a new
concept of words as tools in the language; where language is like a Chess game in
which each pawn has meaning in a particular context in a particular move. In
this context he said that words contain the potentiality of doing not only one
function but many other functions just like any tool that we use for different
purposes. Thus he established a descriptive
method of philosophy contrasting all other theoretic, explanatory and
conceptual methods of past.
Linguistic Insights: It is
fascinating to understand the linguistic insights of Wittgenstein. He said
that, the phenomenon of language has been considered as the vehicle of thinking
and therefore language belonged together to an inexplicable phenomenon of human
life. For example, the child first learns the names of the objects or people
and gradually learns to associate the names and words to the thoughts. Thus
language becomes a linguistic activity that indwells thinking and learning
which unveils the scope for the communal activity and mutual sharing by which
communication leads to communion. Even to the post-modernism of Derrida’s
concept of Deconstruction have roots in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy.
